


Nidhi

by Tayine



Category: Uncharted (Video Games), Uncharted: the Lost Legacy
Genre: Bar Room Brawl, Ficlet, Gen, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-18 13:51:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11875875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tayine/pseuds/Tayine
Summary: The thieves and adventurers take a well-deserved break and hash out some issues lingering between them.Spoilers for The Lost Legacy! Finish the game before you read!





	Nidhi

**Author's Note:**

> Now that the game is live in North America I'm finally posting! This is just a little post-canon ficlet with a scene I personally really wanted to see between the three of them, Sam and Nadine especially. It seems that Nadine forgives him just a bit too easily for the whole 'holding a gun to her head' thing, so I figured this happens when everything has settled down.
> 
> Josh, if you're reading this, I <3 you and your story. Thank you for the foundation ;)

They were tipsy and delighted in the humid air of Meenu’s shop, clinking glass bottles of Lion Strong and talking loudly over the sound of the radio crackling musical static in the corner. It was later that night, after everything. The market was dark, but the sounds of soldiers patrolling and hassling strays came in through the open-air windows, and thunder rumbled dully in the distance.

 Chloe rubbed a finger over one of the many bruises she’d collected and listened to Sam’s braying laughter. Nadine was a good storyteller once you’d gotten her going, and Sam had a cruel streak that she was egging on with a story about one of her men who had gotten himself into an unfortunate scrape in Morocco. Sam was keen to dehumanize the men he’d killed, and Shoreline soldiers were nothing more than bullet fodder to him. Chloe could relate to that, in some way, but she didn’t share his blind contempt for the mercenaries. They’d been led and handled by Nadine, after all, and her taste was as good as any.

She took a sip of her beer and let her gaze rove over the shelves of the storefront again, seeing things in much sharper relief now that she was on the other side of it all. Meenu and her father had some treasures hidden among the overpriced tourist jumble. She wondered, not for the first time, what had become of the girl’s mother. She wondered who stocked the store while her father was off fighting. She was only partially listening to the conversation beside her, and it took her a moment to come back to the table they were sitting around. They stared at her expectantly.

“Sorry?”

“I said, where are you off to now?” Sam was grinning, fueled by the alcohol.

The story had ended, she realized, and moved on to sharper subjects. “Dunno,” she said. “Probably should go visit Mum at some point, tell her a little bit.”

Both of them reacted differently: Nadine moved her hands back onto the tabletop to cup her beer, while Sam leaned back and hooked an arm over the back of the spindly chair.

“What?” Chloe asked, nonplussed.

“Your mother is still alive?” Nadine asked. “You never said.”

“I didn’t think I… Why did you assume she wasn’t?”

“You talked about your father nonstop. I just assumed she had passed as well.”

Chloe laughed morbidly. “Nope, Mum’s puttering around her garden and spying on the neighbors, same as always. She was a nurse, but her joints got bad a few years ago, and they gave her a good pension. I go back once or twice a year to check up on her.”

Sam snorted and took a long drink.

“Fuck’s your problem?”

“Nothing,” he said, but the atmosphere had changed.

The radio was the only noise for a few moments. Then a clatter startled them all, and a soft gasp followed by rushing footsteps told the story.

Chloe raised her chin in a halfhearted attempt to see over the furthest shelf, but she was too weary to do much more than that. With a handshake that held a thick bundle of folded rupees, Meenu’s spinster auntie had allowed them to bunk in the storefront after a voucher from the girl and a promise that they’d be courteous and gone before the shop opened the next morning. They’d been sitting around drinking their supply of Lion for hours now, well into the thick dead of night. She wondered how long the girl had been eavesdropping.

Nadine had gone hard again, so quick, so furiously silent, that Chloe hadn’t had time to even present a counter to it. That was the trouble with soldiers, she’d learned; they snapped to and they snapped off. She scraped her foot forward and nudged Nadine’s boot under the table.

“I don’t know about you ladies, but I’m getting close to that time,” Sam said, unhooking his arm to stretch luxuriously. “Do we call dibs on the cot? I’ll thumb wrestle you for it.” And he presented his hand, the knuckles scabbed over, the fingernails dirty with Hoysala grime.

“What did your mum think about going to Australia?”

Chloe looked up at Nadine, her new partner, deliberating the path to take to the story. “She was angry about it for a long time,” she replied slowly, her chin lowered. Her father’s name had been a curse word for the early years, and she didn’t like to return to that time. Like Chloe, her mother felt abandoned, but unlike her daughter, she didn’t forgive him the transgression of answering the call to adventure. Even now, Chloe wasn’t sure she would tell the whole story - just that she had found some evidence that at least her father had solved his mystery before his death. At least he hadn’t gone to the next life unfulfilled.

Nadine rolled her beer between her palms and said, “My mum didn’t want me to run Shoreline.”

“Oh.” This was news to Chloe, and her interest was piqued.

“She thought it would get me killed someday, and she never supported us when Tata started training me. We’re not close anymore. It’s… interesting… that we had such different lives.”

“And I was an orphan,” Sam said, biting the words. He raised his bottle in mock toast. “To us misfits, outcasts, and loners.” He took a long drink and set the bottle too hard back on the table.

“We don’t have to talk about our parents,” Chloe said. Nate had shown the same kind of brusque shrugging off of any kind of talk about family, and this wasn’t surprising to her. She was uncomfortable, hot, and exhausted, and she could see the waves of uneasiness coming off the two others like shimmering heat. It had been a mistake to keep them together for so long. And the alcohol, which she was already regretting, had been downright stupid. For so many years, far back in her youth, she had cheered alongside her partners, whoever had been foolhardy and intrepid enough to follow her into danger and back, clinking bottles and running their gold and treasures through their fingers. The Tusk sat on the shop counter behind them, but this didn’t taste like the same kind of victory. Thwarting the attack on the city had been too much like the shit Nate used to pull.

“No, let’s talk about what we’re going to spend our money on,” Sam grinned.

“Sam-”

“I know, I know, Ministry of Culture, that bs. But just think, just _pretend_ , that we might get a small fortune out of this.” Sam’s voice was grating now, edging into the sneering dislike that fed him sometimes. It had been the childhood without parents, the adulthood in prison, but she couldn’t help but feel that he had always been this way. He was a good guy, deep down… deep, _deep_ down.

“Drake, I’ve had enough of your whining,” Nadine said. “Chloe and I decided what to do with the Tusk. You can go along with it or you can get the hell out of here.”

Sam didn’t like this, and he smiled nastily. They’d been better after she’d saved him from the handcuffs, but that had been before the win. Before the two of them had partnered up. He probably felt ganged up on. After all, Nadine had been brought into it after it had already started, an afterthought when things went south. Chloe sure knew what that felt like, and she hadn’t been staring at a literal weight-in-gold situation like this. The Tusk was probably her biggest prize ever, besides the whole ‘saving the world’ junk she had blundered through with Nate, and she felt empathy for the fact that he was staring at it, unable to reach. Just like the last time, she supposed.

“All right, no more alcohol for either of you,” she said, pulling their bottles out of both of their hands and standing to bring them to the counter. The world tilted unsteadily beneath her feet. Hadn’t she had a head injury earlier? It felt so long ago.

“Chloe, please, hear me out. I’m all for preserving your culture, really, I get why you were so mad at Asav. But we all, all of us here at this table, almost died for that stupid hunk of whatever the hell it is.” Sam gestured to the Tusk, and if he wasn’t as drunk as he was, she almost worried that he would snatch it and run while they were sleeping. “Go ahead with our 3 split, or halves and quarters, fine, but at least get as much _money_ as you possibly can out of it. Otherwise, was it worth it?”

Chloe barked out an incredulous laugh. “We saved an entire city today, you doofus. We saved this little girl who is letting us sleep in her father’s store. We took care of a madman who was going to take innocent lives because he was mad at the government. Yes, Sam, it was worth it, even if we _hadn’t_ recovered the Tusk.”

He backed down a little, noting the fire in her eyes, or perhaps the fact that the little girl she mentioned was back, eyeing them through the panes of the back wall. She had charmed him just like she had Chloe.

Without looking, Chloe called out, “Meenu, go to bed and stay there, or I call Aunt Nitya!"

There was a squeak of fear and scrabbling footsteps. Then thunder cracked overhead. The gentle hiss of rain began, pinging onto the metal sheeting of the roof above them.

“Fine. Fine. I get it. I just… Can’t we win completely, for once?” Sam heaved a dramatic sigh, leaning back to stare at the ceiling where fabrics were wafting gently. “I’m glad you two are alive, and I’m sure as shit glad I’m alive. But treasure hunting isn’t as much fun as it used to be.”

“The real world sucks, doesn’t it?” Nadine smirked.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

So close. Chloe went back to the table and stood over the middle, physically between them. “Guys.”

Nadine was poking a hornet’s nest, and judging from the shine to her eyes, she had matched him drink-for-drink. “Just that it’s pretty funny to see you repeating the same mistakes as before.”

“Oh yeah, Ms. Ross? What mistakes are those?”

“Guys. Chill.”

Nadine licked the sharp bottom edges of her teeth, enjoying this a little too much. Where Sam was a grungy schoolyard bully, Nadine was a cruel master of mind games. She’d probably learned about psychological warfare at the same time she’d been reading up on trebuchets or monkey species endemic to the Indian peninsula. She said, “Never were one to think before you act. I saw it with Avery and I see it now. No wonder you needed me and Chloe to come rescue you.”

“I didn’t need _rescuing_ -”

“You said it yourself, back at the train tracks-”

“You weren’t even a part of this three days ago-”

“’Cause Chloe needed me to help _rescue_ you-”

“You bitch-”

“Hey!” Chloe cried. “Tone it down. Both of you,” she added sharply, putting her bandaged hand on Nadine’s shoulder. “I’m tired of this. You two are never going to be partners, sure, but at least be civil.”

“He put a gun to my head!” Nadine jumped up and pounded a fist on the table, making their empty bottles wobble and fall. “He had me beat and he pulled the fucking trigger, Chloe. If it wasn’t for your stupid boyfriend I would be dead and it would be this bastard’s fault.”

Chloe took a few breaths to regain the air she had lost. She definitely hadn’t heard this story. She put her hand back on Nadine’s shoulder, tethering her, while she looked at Sam for a reply.

He was looking shellshocked, color flooding his high forehead. “That… That was a mistake. I’ll give you that. But you were trying to kill my brother-”

“He tried to kill me first!”

“Hey, you weren’t exactly giving him a reason not to-”

Nadine laughed meanly. “It’s always like that with you thieves. Tit for tat, an eye for an eye.”

Sam sneered. “If I’m not mistaken, you’re a thief too, now, right?” He jerked his head at Chloe, standing beside her. “Partnered up.”

“That’s what this is about?” Chloe asked, before she could help herself. She’d figured he was feeling left out, but that sounded downright jealous.

“It’s about whatever shit Nadine here is working through.”

“You trying to kill me, you mean?” Nadine asked, her voice back to silk.

“I didn’t exactly-”

“You pulled the trigger. With the gun pointed at my head.”

“It wasn’t pointed at your head, Nathan had grabbed it by then-”

Nadine laughed over Chloe’s exasperated sound. He could have made an amazing litigator.

“Sam, she’s looking for an apology.”

“I don’t need him to say sorry!” Nadine snapped, rounding on her. “I just want him to admit he’s an ass.”

“I’m an ass!” Sam yelled, his arms thrown up at the ceiling. “I’m an ass, and you’re an ass, and you are certainly an ass, Ms. Frazer, with this whole ‘bring my arch enemy into the mix’ business.”

“Hey, I would never have allowed her near you if I had known about this. Honestly, I can’t believe you’re not dead already. That’s restraint.”

“That’s thinking ahead,” Nadine mocked.

They were silent, finally, for several adrenaline-filled heartbeats. Sam was looking mournfully at his half-finished beer, probably thinking this conversation would have been less unpleasant with it.

Chloe glanced at the Tusk, then at Nadine, then sat down heavily in her chair. “It’s been a very long, very hot, very painful day. I would really like it if I could trust both of you to leave the rest of this until the morning.”

“If it helps, I would prefer to never speak of any of this ever again,” Sam muttered. He rubbed his temples with his forefingers and moaned under his breath. “I’m going to hurt tomorrow.”

Nadine opened her mouth to say something probably very mean, but at Chloe’s sharp look she backed down and took her seat again.

“Look, both of you are here because I trust you. It doesn’t have to be mutual on your parts. We can have this one thing together and never have to meet again, if you want. But no more pointing guns at each other, understand?” Chloe said it with derision, but she meant it, and the look on her face told the others there would be hell to pay. “Let this be the fresh start.”

The two of them glared across the table.

“Shake hands,” Chloe said, feeling more and more like a preschool teacher.

Sam held his hand out first, surprising her, though he looked just as unhappy as Nadine did as she seemed to weigh her options. Then she reciprocated, her mouth tight, and they squeezed for a second before letting go.

Chloe began to say something, relieved that she could at least trust them not to put knives in the other’s back, until Sam opened his mouth.

“She’s just bitter she chose the losing side again-”

Nadine went over the table as fluid as a jungle cat at midnight.

“For fuck’s sake!” Chloe said loudly, too wise to jump into the middle of the fight.

Nadine had caught Sam high, toppling his center of gravity, and he went backwards and down. It looked like she was trying to get him into a headlock, but Sam rolled – oily git – and managed to get a handful of Nadine’s hair. He yanked, making her cry out, and struck with a fist.

“Guys, the shop-!”

Nadine flipped over and got Sam into a grapple hold, choking him and pulling backwards so that both their body weights went slamming into a piece of shelving with ceramic elephants. The wood held, miraculously, but one of the poor creatures went down and shattered.

Sam threw a blind elbow that caught Nadine along her eyebrow. She let go just enough that he was able to get a few more hits in, all on her belly, before she ducked the last, seeing the pattern of his untrained prison-yard brawling, and drove a knee hard into his stomach. He coughed, doubled over, and went flying as Nadine seized him by the collar of his dirty shirt and threw him out the doorway into the market.

“I’ll pay for the elephant,” Chloe heard Nadine huff, before the soldier went out into the darkness after her prey.

Chloe followed, shaking her head and muttering under her breath.

The rain was coming down steadily now. The market was awash with the string lights overhead, the flicker of lamps from the apartments and tenements circling, and, further off in the distance, the dull, pulsing glow of fires from the bombings. Chloe stood in the doorway, sheltered by the last few inches of the roof, while she crossed her arms in front of her chest and oversaw the scuffle.

Nadine had Sam on the ropes, pinned on his stomach with a knee in the small of his back. His head was being held by one of her strong hands, and puddles splashed in front of his mouth as he spat water away after every breath. She was driving a punch into his ribs at the beat of every word as she spoke: “Don’t. Under. Estimate. Me. Again.”

“You got him,” Chloe sighed over the sound of the rain. “Nadine. You got him.”

She looked up, a feral glow to her eyes, and relaxed her fisted hand.

“Sam, don’t be stupid,” Chloe said next, knowing this was the moment when the fight would fade away or escalate to murder.

Sam pushed up from the dirty pavement, shaking black water off his face. He sat on his heels for a second, breathing hard, his hands fisted on his knees.

Nadine held out a hand. He looked at it and then her.

Chloe tensed, but when Sam took her hand, Nadine helped him up and let go again.

“You take a punch pretty well,” the soldier said. “I’d forgotten about that.”

“Yeah, well, you give one good.” Sam held his jaw and clicked it back and forth before following the girls back into the shop, all of them moving slowly. The next morning was going to be downright miserable.

Chloe retrieved their beers from the counter and brought them back to the table as the two settled gingerly into their chairs. “That’s enough, yeah? It’s done?”

“It’s done,” Nadine said. Of course she would, she had won.

Sam took a deep swig of his Lion. “It’s done. I got the pirate treasure, but she got to beat me up. Fair’s fair.”

“Sam, for Christ’s sake-”

“No, it’s fine. It’s true, I didn’t get Avery’s treasure. So what, you pick yourself up and move on to the next one.” Nadine was calm now, having finally completed whatever mission she’d assigned herself. She dug into a pocket and pulled out a man’s wallet, from which she retrieved a few crisp rupees, reaching to place them carefully on the shop counter.

Chloe rolled her eyes and sat back down. The next few weeks were going to be a challenge, navigating this world with Nadine, Sam never too far behind. And Sullivan, wherever the hell he was, always had a finger in a few pies. That was the fun of it, she supposed. She never knew what was going to come next, which ledge was going to break, which ancient Hoysala elevator was going to collapse underfoot. She was so damn lucky.

She took a drink from her warming beer and said, “I hope you guys know this means I get the cot.”


End file.
